


For Us

by ausfil



Category: Westlife
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Beating, Boys In Love, Bullying, Caring, Crying, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Romance, Teen Angst, Teen Romance, Wishful Thinking, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 15:56:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13884186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ausfil/pseuds/ausfil
Summary: All Shane and Mark have is each other. No matter what, whether Mark gets beat up again or whether there’s something nasty written about Shane in the toilets, theyalwayshave each other.





	For Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SwedishGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwedishGirl/gifts).



> Dedicated to my favourite Swede♡  
> LOVE YOU
> 
>  
> 
> (Also, possible trigger warnings for school bullying.)

Ten past one. Mark should have been out ten minutes ago for lunchtime. Chewing on his lip, Shane checked his watch again. It hadn’t even been twenty seconds yet. His gaze was fixed on the door. His mind already drew up the worst conclusions of blood on Mark’s lips instead of his kiss.

His legs were the first to react when Mark’s classmate walked out of the building, with Mark still nowhere to be seen.

“Kian!”

“Oh, hey.” Kian studied him for a little bit and frowned. “You alright?”

“Do you know where Mark is?”

“No idea. He didn’t come to class.”

Shane’s chest tightened. “But… he walked to school with me in the morning. He came to school.”

“I don’t know what to tell ya. Sorry, dude. All I know is he wasn’t in class the last period.”

“Right, I… Okay. Thanks.”

Shane looked like he was about to fall apart. “Did something happen again?”

***

Mark closed his eyes and buried himself underneath blankets. He tried to focus on the warmth. He tried to focus on his breathing. On anything else, but the throb of his cheekbone stole his wavering attention. The sting of his lips came to a close second. But the pang of his heart was the definite first.

The walk to and from classes were always the worst. Little blind spots where it was teacher-free and they could basically do whatever they wanted. Mark couldn’t find the strength to fight back. Not when he was on the floor with the room spinning, blood trickling down the side of his face, and when all he wanted was for Shane to colour his heart in red through soft kisses.

They’d left with smug faces when the bell rang for the next class, and Mark really couldn’t bring himself to go.

He wondered if Shane was okay. If Shane was hurting somewhere, or if Shane found out that he ran back home and was hurting even more because of it. Mark checked his watch. School would have finished five minutes ago. He wondered if Shane would come looking for him.

His mind was _screaming_ a hundred things at once, and he didn’t even realise when the door to his bedroom creaked open.

“Mark?”

Mark darted up, felt tension leave his body in an unbelievable instant. The one person standing there, the one person whom he endured all of this for, was watching him with eyes that could drip any second; a look that took him back.

It was the same distraught look in those eyes that he could remember staring into a couple months ago. At the back of the gym building where no one ever came, as far as they were aware. His hand around Shane’s waist. Shane’s hand caressing his jaw. Lips on lips, until they heard a “Hey!” being yelled at them.

Then the next school day had come and they hadn’t quite known how to deal with this new cloud over their lives. It was nice when no one knew. It was nice when all they did was steal kisses in a bathroom stall or sneak off to Shane’s bedroom when his parents were busy, just to have a cuddle and to be able to whisper three precious words out loud instead of hiding them away in a special place. That was nice.

The moment they had stepped in school the next day, they had felt like everyone had their eyes on them. All the familiar faces had turned into a scowl.

“Um, hi.” Mark attempted at a little smile that reached no further than his dimple.

Shane sat down on the bed, his lips squeezed into a thin line as he scanned Mark’s face, a piece of his heart tearing away with every scuffed edge. “Did they…?”

When Mark heaved himself up with a nod, Shane sighed and shuffled closer. He reached out to stroke through brown locks and to feel that he was real; everything was real and this precious boy was hurting because of it. The defeated despondent droop of the eye beside cuts on the side of his face was _too_ _fucking_ _real_ and Shane didn’t know how much more of this he could take.

“Tell me what happened, love.” Mark couldn’t figure out exactly what that look in Shane’s eyes was - warm and encouraging and filled with a pure diamond that only shined for him, but something that also burnt in bloody murder like Shane would be willing to stab anything that even lay a finger on him.

“Just… the usual. I was walking to class and they… Um.” The soothing fingers running through his hair was the boulder knocking down a building; knocking down that defensive brick wall he’d been trying to keep up for himself for the past few hours since he ran home, for his own sake.

“Shit. Okay. It’s okay.” Shane brought his arms around when he saw the first tear drop from blue eyes that deserved no pain. When he heard the first sob against his shoulder, he pressed his lips on a trembling cheek. He let Mark cry for a while. Just in silence, with encouraging touches up and down his back.

Shane had always been pegged as the emotional one - the one to cry first when something tugged at his heart, the one to always weep at stupid chick flicks when Mark was busy laughing at how cheesy the dialogue was. But when Mark occasionally broke down like this, he didn’t want to be that person. He wanted to be the oasis.

After Shane felt his throat almost erode from all the tears he’d been trying to hold back, Mark quietened over his shoulder and thought it was okay to break the hug for a bit. “Better?”

“No. It still stings.” Mark felt the same fingers come up to trace around the open wounds beside his eye, then trail down to underneath his split lip. When he looked up, Shane looked like he was still struggling to blink back tears. “I put cream on it,” he mumbled as if it was supposed to make Shane feel better.

Shane just nodded a response before heaving out a sigh from the pit of his aching chest. “Jesus…” he scrubbed his face and dried his eyes, “why do they keep doing this to you?”

“Because you’re you and I’m me.” Mark shrugged nonchalantly like it was the obvious fact and Shane didn’t know what to say to that.

It was true, in a way. They didn’t touch Shane as much, because he was Shane. He got the occasional shoves and name-calling and dirty looks that made his toes curl. But he was the Filan who had six older siblings to fuck anyone up if they ever dared to beat up their baby brother. The Filan whose family owned a café down the street from the school, and who could fight back if he reached the peak of his anger.

But Feehily? The eldest of three who had two useless youngsters running around his house, who they knew wouldn’t throw a punch, let alone a single slap or even a yell, to defend himself. So of course, Mark would be the much easier target. It didn’t take long for the predators to find out.

It wasn’t to say which was worse though. No matter the degree, it still gashed their hearts in ways they didn’t even know how to start to stitch back.

“Love you.” Then Mark whispered it back, and Shane felt a small smile bloom across his cheek. “Do you want to cuddle for a bit?”

“Yes, please.”

They got underneath the warm blanket, Shane’s head resting on a soft shoulder that felt like the safest place on the planet. He brought his arm around Mark’s waist and pulled him in close. Just to hold him. Make sure that he felt loved. Secure. At least in here when they were alone. Every moment counted.

“For what it’s worth, you didn’t deserve it.” Shane crooned with a kiss just beside the open slit on plump lips.

“Thank you.” Mark wanted to hold onto that kiss just a little bit more. “Anything happen to you today? Are you alright?”

Shane shrugged and closed his eyes for longer than what could be claimed as a blink before he opened them again, looking down and drawing circles over Mark’s uniform shirt. “Nothing big. All good. More worried about you though.”

Mark just pursed his lips. He knew what Shane was trying to do. Every time he asked if Shane was okay, Shane would blur everything right in front of his eyes with evasive techniques that hurt more; saying things like “I’m fine, but how about you?” and “just a little thing they said to me today, but it doesn’t matter. Does your eye hurt?” Shane thought he was being smart. Shane thought he was being compassionate. What he didn’t know was how small it made Mark feel.

“What was the _nothing big_ , then?”

“Nothing big. I don’t know. Just… nothing big. It’s fine.”

“What was it?”

Shane arched up for another kiss with an irritating smile. “You don’t need to worry about it, love. Look after yourself first.”

Mark wanted to jump out of the embrace, all of a sudden. “I just fucking got beat up so I’m not really in a good mood. Do you wanna just tell me?”

Shane frowned and pulled back a bit. “Why are you getting mad?”

“Because I want to know what’s going on with you. I want to know when they hurt you too. I’m not the only one getting fucked up in this. I want to help too, I…” Mark felt tears prick at his eyes again. He let out a grunt of frustration and stared up at the ceiling. “There’s just nothing wrong with talking to me, you know? I _want_ you to talk to me, like how I talk to you. I think I have the right to care about you and worry about you.”

Shane propped himself up on one elbow, stroked Mark’s cheek and spent a few seconds to let Mark’s words settle in his brain and to open a gate. “Okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t… think about it like that.” Mark was still looking up. “Marky, look at me.” He did, eventually. “I’m sorry. Okay? You’re right.”

“Okay.” The edged of Mark’s eyes softened, and so did his tone. “So can you tell me what happened then?”

Shane lied back down and snuggled up into safe arms again, tracing the same circles over the thin fabric covering Mark’s chest. “It really wasn’t too much that I couldn’t handle. There was… something written about me in the toilets. I tried to scribble it out but pens don’t do much over markers so.”

“Jesus… I’m sorry. That’s shit.” Mark wrapped up the boy in his arms and pulled him in for a tight cuddle. He heard soft breaths against his ear, felt them reach his shoulder and immerse into his skin. “I can bring a marker to school tomorrow and scribble over it for you.”

“I appreciate it. When we move to London, can we have stainless doors?” Shane sounded proud of his Einstein idea.

London. That made Mark smile. They did this a lot. Talked about moving to London more often than they’d liked to admit, spun the same roulette of conversations, but they never got sick of it, like it was a thing that could actually happen one day. It probably wouldn’t, but it was nice to dream at least. It was always nice to dream.

“Stainless doors?” Mark snorted. “That doesn’t mean you can’t write on them.”

“Well, then marker-proof. I don’t know. And it’s just gonna be you and me. I can write lovely things about you.”

“We can have a room just for writing lovely things about each other.”

Shane grinned like an idiot at that. “Well, you’re not taking away my cinema room. No way. Maybe your reading room though.”

“That’s not fair. You’re not going to use the reading room with me?”

“Nope. It’s practically going to be all you. I might have like, one book in there.”

“That Boyzone book?”

Shane chuckled. “Yeah. Exactly. What are you gonna write about me?”

“Hm,” Mark shuffled back a bit so he could get a clear view of Shane’s face. He stroked the side of it, palming a smile that was swelling underneath his touch like a rose blossoming. “That you’re smelly sometimes. And really really lazy.”

Shane rolled his eyes, then brought the gaze back to warm blue eyes making his heart sing. But there was something different in those blues that changed within seconds like a tsunami of emotion – something that seemed brighter but more broken at the same time. He swallowed hard.

“I’d also write that you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. That… that all this shit we’re going through right now,” Mark felt his throat clump a little with every syllable he tried to utter while Shane was already struggling to keep tears inside him, “it’s going to be worth it if it means I get to keep you and to love you. If, in a few years, I get to live with you and to hold your hand outside and show the world how proud of you I am, and even if this has to be the stepping stone, it’ll all be so worth it.”

There were already stains on Mark’s pillow. Of course. Filan, the emotional one. Mark wiped a few streaks away and felt that he wasn’t too far off himself.

“That’s the best fucking thing I’ve ever heard. I love you so much.” Mark brushed a soft kiss on Shane’s forehead despite the sting of his lips. “Well, I’d write that,” Shane started with a sniffle and a wavering voice, “you are the strongest person I know. And that I wouldn’t have made it out alive if I had to go through it alone. And you already wrote all the nice things so I feel like I’m losing here,” two chuckles mingled in the space between them and gave the silent tears a sweet break, “but I’d do this all over again if I had to. For you. For us.”

“Definitely not losing.” Moulding into each other, they fell into another hug. Both of them needed it more than anything. Soft sobs were let go on his shoulder, and all Mark could do was hug him harder and whisper love in his ear.

“I’m so sick of this. I’m just… _so_ sick of it.” Mark hummed an empathic agreement, his hand secure on the small of Shane’s back for at least a little sense of support. “But it’ll be worth it,” Shane mumbled. Although Mark didn’t know if that was for him or for Shane himself. “London will be waiting for us, right?”

“It will be, babe. It will be. And I’m sure it’ll be great.”

Mark arched in closer, as close as he could. To feel that heart beat against his and to know that they were beating for each other. To know that this was all they needed.


End file.
